


Familiar Faces

by EmmaArthur (EchoBleu)



Series: Power Through [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, High School, Jesse Manes is His Own Warning, Mutant Powers, Prequel, They're all mutants, mentions of abuse, mutant AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23916955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoBleu/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: Alex goes back to high school after having missed a year. Liz has some news for him. (prequel snippet forPower Through)
Relationships: Alex Manes & Liz Ortecho, Alex Manes & Rosa Ortecho
Series: Power Through [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1723951
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Familiar Faces

**Author's Note:**

> For an anonymous prompt on Tumblr. We don’t know a lot about the characters' background stories in Power Through yet, so I dug into Alex’s past. He’s about fifteen in this, and it’s not too spoilery but teases a little at what the story is about...

“Alex!”

Alex barely has time to look up before he's engulfed by a hug. “Oof, Liz, you're gonna suffocate me,” he says, trying to muster back the enthusiasm he hasn't felt about anything in a year.

“It's been so long! I can't believe you're here!”

Alex gently pushes Liz back to look at her. She's grown. Not a lot, not anywhere as much as he has, and he now towers over her. She looks older, she dresses differently, less like a little girl and more like a grown woman.

It hits him hard suddenly.  It's been a year. He's been out of school, out of his normal life, for a whole year, and it's a year he's not getting back. It's felt like an eternity and a single day at the same time, but a year is such a long time to have lost.

And his life is never going to be his own again. He knows that. He may be out of hell  for now , but he's  never getting away from his father.

Liz smells like lavender and peach shampoo and a hint of sweat. The sun hurts his head even through the extra-strength sunglasses. He eyes the crowd by the school gates and he can't even stomach the thought of making his way through that.

“You've changed,” Liz whispers. Alex focuses back on her as well as he can. He knows what she sees, beside the growth spurt. The baggy clothes, the complete lack of personality in his near-military getup. The baseball hat and sunglasses, the noise-canceling headphones he hasn't removed−he dreads the moment a teacher makes him put them away.

The way he holds himself now, shoulders slumped and each movement careful, trying to make himself smaller. He tries not to wince under Liz's stare. “You weren't really in a different school, were you?” she asks.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Alex sighs. He knows the rumors his father started, had Flint spread around school. The official version is that he went to a military boarding school for a year to straighten up his behavior. The speculation going around town is that he was sent to a mental hospital after a breakdown and that he's probably a dangerous madman. He's sure Liz has heard both, and has had time to wonder, during a whole year of no contact.

A lex doesn't want to think how close to the truth the second version is, and yet how far. He doesn't want to think about the last year at all.

“Okay,” Liz puts a hand on his arm. Alex has to force himself not to flinch away. “I won't ask. But you can talk to me whenever you're ready, okay?”

A lex just nods. He grits his teeth as a motorbike passes too close to them and the pain in his head spikes again.

“Rosa!” Liz suddenly calls, waving at someone behind him. Alex flinches hard at the noise this time, but she doesn't seem to notice. “Look who's here!”

Alex hears and smells Rosa approaching before he see her−though trying to separate each sense doesn't mean much to him now. She's changed, too. She's gotten wilder, somehow, and her hair has purple strands in it. She has bags under her eyes like she doesn't sleep much at night.

“Alex!” she exclaims, but she's much less demonstrative than her sister. She opens her arms and lets Alex come to her, and the hug makes Alex's skin crawl a lot less. She squeezes him tight, and it actually feels good for a moment, like he can let go of the outside world. “How are you doing?”

“I'm okay,” Alex lies. “How are _you_?”

“I'm good,” Rosa lies right back. He buries his face into her hair, briefly.

“I know what you are,” she murmurs in his ear.

“What?” Alex panics immediately, his chest caught in a vice. “What do you mean?”

“I know you're a mutant. Don't worry, I won't tell.”

Breathing is suddenly hard. Alex takes a gulp of air and it burns down his throat.

“How?” he gasps.

“Don't be scared,” Rosa says. “You know about me. I know about you. It's okay. You're safe.”

“I'm not safe,” Alex murmurs. “But I trust you.”

He's known what she is for several years, since he wa tched her shut down every kitchen appliance in the Crashdown one day in the middle of a panic attack.  She had some trouble getting her powers under control, but he doesn't think anyone else beside her family knows. Mutants aren't welcome in Roswell, no more than in any small town in America. Large cities are more progressive, but even there, the fear and the hatred are always present.

H e breathes through his nose slowly as Rosa lets him go, trying to keep himself under control. It's hard. There's too much tension, too much fear, too much  _everything._ Hundreds of people who have walked down this sidewalk, and he can feel the ghost of their presence. He sees echoes of what Liz and Rosa wore yesterday over their current outfits, traces of the people they've hugged and kissed.

“You okay?” 

Liz is suddenly too close to him, and Alex jumps. “I'm fine,” he mumbles. He looks down at his watch. They have another thirty minutes before classes actually start, since this is the first day of the year. He doesn't want to sit through the principal's speech. “Can we get out of here?”

“Sure,” Rosa says. “If you can make it through the crowd, the music room should be empty, and I still have the key from last year.”

“Weren't you supposed to give it back?” Alex asks, raising an eyebrow. His tone feels off, faking normalcy, but it's the best he can do right now.

“Was I?” Rosa winks at him. “Come on.”

She and Liz each frame Alex on one side  as they push through the people crowding the gates. Alex closes his eyes tightly, thankful for his sunglasses, and shuts his other senses down as much as he can. He feels people follow him with their gaze, mutter behind his back, but he forces himself to keep going. 

He doesn't breathe until Rosa closes the door of the music room behind him.

“Assholes,” Rosa murmurs under her breath.

“I'm so glad you're back,” Liz tells Alex, dropping her bag and sitting down on the floor. Alex and Rosa follow suit.

“Me too,” Alex almost manages a smile, because it's the truth. This day is already heaps better than every day he's had in a year, just because his friends are here.

“I want to show you something,” Liz says. “But, you have to keep it a secret.”

“Of course,” Alex answers. He has so many secrets of his own. He's fairly sure any secret of sweet, kind Liz will be harmless.

“You sure?” Rosa asks.

“It's Alex! Of course I'm sure,” Liz says. “Look.”

She raises her hands in front of her, and pushes them into a forward movement, like she's throwing a ball. Alex jumps as a solid shield of sorts appears in front of her, made of what looks like bubbles of air. He can hear the sound distortion, feel the barrage. It's like the air has been pushed together into a solid mass.

“You're−” he starts.

“A mutant, yes.”

“No,” Alex shakes his head. “No, you can't−”

He's already been terrified for Rosa ever since he figured out exactly what his father is doing. To add Liz into the mix…

He scoots backward, away from them. “You can't,” he repeats.

“Alex, I thought you'd be okay with this−” Liz starts, looking disappointed and a little scared.

“You don't understand, it's dangerous!”

“We know that, that's why we're keeping it a secret,” Rosa intervenes. “We're careful, don't worry.”

“No, it goes way beyond that,” Alex swallows. “You don't get it. You can't show anyone, ever.”

“It's going to be fine,” Liz says. “We just need to get through high school, and then we'll move to a big city where mutants aren't hated. We'll be fine, Alex.”

Alex keeps shaking his head. “Did you tell her?” he asks Rosa.

“No,” Rosa murmurs.

“Tell me what?” Liz frowns.

Alex takes a breath. “I'm a mutant too, Liz. I don't have a cool power like you so I can't show you, but the reason I was gone last year is that my father found out.  And he can't, under any circumstance, find out about you two.”


End file.
